It's no secret that smoking cigarettes can do significant damage to a person's health. That risk is more prominent among pregnant women, who are bound to give birth to smaller and weaker babies if they smoke habitually. But what if majority of pregnant teenage girls intentionally smoke cigarettes because they fear that they cannot cope with giving birth to a large baby?
Over the course of 10 years, a national anthropological study in Australia found that girls as young as 16 years old intentionally smoke cigarettes to reduce their baby's birth weights. These teens are scared of going into labor with a big baby so they choose to take up smoking, which has a higher risk of health problems, The Courier Mail reported (via The Daily Telegraph).
Simone Dennis, an associate professor at the Australian National University, said the teenage girls read on packets that cigarette smoking can reduce a baby's birth weight. Some pregnant girls started smoking just for this sole reason, while others who already have the habit smoke more in order to further reduce the infant's birth weight.
Risks And Health Complications
Pregnant women who smoke tend to have higher stillbirth or premature birth rate, with their baby likely to have childhood asthma and allergies. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking while pregnant ups the risk of miscarriage, birth defects like cleft palate or cleft lip, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS. Smoking can also lead to problems in the placenta, which can detach from the womb too early and cause bleeding harmful for both the mother and baby.
Around 18 percent of pregnant women smoke cigarettes in Australia. Mothers who smoke have babies about 200g lighter. According to the CDC, about 10 percent of women admitted in 2011 that they smoked cigarettes during the last three months of their pregnancy, CDC's website noted.
Smoking Increases Schizophrenia Risk
Smoking during pregnancy could affect a child's mental health as well. A recent study led by Dr. Alan Brown of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University Medical Center, or CUMC, found that mothers who smoked while they're pregnant will likely have children with schizophrenia, Medical News Today reported.
The research team found that children born to mothers who smoked heavily during pregnancy are 38 percent more likely to develop schizophrenia when they get older. Evidence of smoking like tobacco toxins while pregnant tend to remain in a child's blood long after birth and could lead to other health complications as the kid matures.
